Salisbury uses big second half to slug the Slaters 54-27 and get to .500

SARAH PATTI, CONTRIBUTED PHOTO

The Salisbury offense (in white) was nearly unstoppable Friday night in rolling to a 54-27 win over Bangor at Farnan Field. The attack was led by quarterback Tevon Weber (7) who threw four touchdown passes.

The Salisbury offense (in white) was nearly unstoppable Friday night in rolling to a 54-27 win over Bangor at Farnan Field. The attack was led by quarterback Tevon Weber (7) who threw four touchdown passes. (SARAH PATTI, CONTRIBUTED PHOTO)

You would have thought the Salisbury locker room would have been a noisy place at halftime Friday night at Bangor's Paul Farnan Field.

After all, the Falcons had seen leads of 21-7 and 27-19 vanish and found themselves in a 27-27 tie at intermission after the Slaters scored in the final minute of the first half.

Instead, a different tone was established.

"We all sat down and were quiet," Salisbury quarterback Tevon Weber said. "We all knew what we had to do. We knew we were better than them. We just had to come out and play the way we can."

That's exactly what the Falcons did.

They opened the second half with an impressive nine-play, 69-yard scoring drive that ended with Weber finding Kyle Hartzell for a 25-yard TD pass.

That got the ball rolling and it didn't stop until Salisbury had secured a convincing 54-27 win over Bangor that evened the Falcons' record at 2-2 and gave them a .500 mark for the first time this late in a season since they ended the 2007 campaign 5-5.

Salisbury has already matched its win total of last season, but looks like a team capable of racking up a lot of points and W's between now and the end of October.

"At halftime, we just talked about the kids relaxing and doing what we do," Falcons third-year coach Andy Cerco said. "I told them at the beginning of the week that this game was about us, not them. That's kind of how we look at things. If we play our game and do what we want to do, we can compete with a lot of teams."

Salisbury showed that immediately this season when it rallied from a 33-7 deficit to take a fourth-quarter lead on heavily-favored Saucon Valley before falling 39-36.

This time, the Falcons were determined to finish things off offensively and punctuated it with a stout defensive effort as well.

"I'm proud of our kids," Cerco said. "Our defensive coordinator Geoff Laird does a great job of preparing our kids as does offensive coordinator Andy Doran. They teach great technique and our kids are buying into what they're teaching. We're just going to continue to grow from here."

The lead continued to grow in the second half for Salisbury as it scored on all four of its possessions and got two turnovers to stop Bangor's hard-to-solve single-wing attack.

Weber, a 6-foot-4 junior, was accurate all night, completing 11 of his first 12 throws.

He mixed up his targets, connecting most often with Mason Donaldson, who had five catches for 97 yards and a pair of touchdowns.

"We watched a lot of film and felt we could have a lot of success running and passing," Weber said. "The running game makes us go. That opens up the passing game. When the running game is on, the passing game is on. When they're both on, we're very hard to beat."

As for Donaldson, another junior, Weber said: "He's my No. 1 receiver. He's a great kid. He can get open and he has great hands. I just have to put the ball where it has to be."

Salisbury, though, is not quite where it wants to be and knows it can't stop here.

The Falcons whipped Bangor 41-27 in the season opener last year and then lost eight of their next nine games and were held to 14 points or fewer in those eight setbacks.

Yet, Cerco and Co. had to like what they saw.

"This was one of the more complete games we've had as an offense, using the run to set up the pass," Cerco said. "We went with a little more spread stuff in the second quarter to take advantage of some of the things they were doing defensively. Then we went back to our running game and from our standpoint, we tried to stay balanced."

But as happy as Cerco was with his offense, he was just as pleased with the defense.

"That single-wing is tough to adjust to when you see it just once or twice a year," he said. "Geoff Laird made adjustments in the second quarter that really seemed to help us out."

Bangor coach Donnie Hawk, whose team lost for the third straight time after a season-opening win over Catasauqua, said it was the opening drive of the second half by Salisbury that took the starch out of the Slaters.

"They have a real nice skill-set there and [Weber] is a good athlete who throws the ball well," Hawk said. "But we had our opportunities and didn't capitalize. It's hard to keep answering a team like that."

The Slaters, who got a 126-yard rushing performance from senior Sean Wolderich and some big plays from sophomore Saivaughn Vass, will try to bounce back next week against Southern Lehigh.

"We have to keep things in perspective, but to come out and play like we did in the first half showed me that we still have a shot here," Hawk said. "We're not done."